Posted on 05/16/2010 2:41:24 PM PDT by LouAvul
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is unlikely to face a Republican filibuster, the Senate's second-ranking Republican said Sunday.
"The filibuster should be relegated to extreme circumstances, and I don't think Elena Kagan represents that," Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CBS’s "Face the Nation."
Kyl voted to confirm Kagan to be solicitor general, the top lawyer who argues the administration's cases before the Supreme Court. But Kagan shouldn't be count on his vote again, he said.
"No," he said. "I explained at the time that my vote for the temporary position as the government's top lawyer in the Justice Department did not suggest how I would vote were she to be nominated for a lifetime appointment to a court such as the Supreme Court."
Administration efforts to keep Kagan's confirmation process humming along with little drama continue. Over the weekend, the White House sent a letter to the National Archives, urging the release of 160,000 pages of documents from Kagan's tenure in the Clinton White House. And this week she will head back to Capitol Hill for meetings to shore up additional support.
Judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) predicted Kagan's confirmation to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens will be "done this summer” ahead of the court's new term. Leahy said he'll be sitting down with ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) this week.
"We'll work out a time," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Republicans have meanwhile stepped up their criticism in the run-up to the expected summer hearing, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried a new line of attack Sunday, addressing Kagan's role in the Citizens United Case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment could not limit corporate funding in campaigns.
"Solicitor Kagan's office, in the initial hearing, argued that it'd be okay to ban books," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And then when there was a re-hearing, Solicitor Kagan herself, in her first Supreme Court argument, suggested that it might be okay to ban pamphlets. I think that's very troubling."
On the Sunday shows, GOP senators again focused on Kagan's role in barring military recruiters from Harvard Law School. In 2003, Kagan, the law school’s dean, decided that military officials could not use the campus' main recruitment office because the military's "don't ask, don't tell" stance violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy.
Sessions proclaimed that it was "no little bitty matter," and said that Kagan broke the law.
“She disallowed them from the normal recruitment process on campus,” he told Jake Tapper on “This Week.” “She went out of her way to do so. She was a national leader in that, and she violated the law of the United States at various points in the process.”
McConnell, who did not repeat the claim that Kagan had broken the law, did say "the committee ought to look into it," since the "record has yet to be developed."
And while Kyl declined to weigh in on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's claim that Kagan is "anti-military," he said the controversy will "play a part in the hearings."
"In my view, it was inappropriate for her to describe it as a discriminatory policy of the military," he said. "She did not deny entry on to the campus of the president, President Clinton, or the members of the Congress who had adopted the law."
The White House has stressed that Kagan has had great relationships with veterans and with the military. And Leahy pushed back on “This Week,” saying it was "sound and fury signifying nothing."
"If somebody wants to go in the military, they usually find a recruiter," he said. "I mean, I don't think there was a recruiting station on the campus when my youngest son went and joined the Marine Corps. He wanted to join the Marine Corps. He had no trouble finding a recruiter. And I think in this case, the recruitment went on at Harvard all the way through. This really is trying to make up something out of whole cloth."
LOL
Jon Kyl is the 2nd in charge of the US Senate minority.
NY had a decent candidate for the Presidency, Guiliani but Crist from FL stabbed him in the back
She's a homosexual. Those who practice homosexuality have seared their own conscience.
and you have personal knowledge of that charge?
Oh, the pro-baby-killing, pro-homosexual, Republican socialist from NY.
No wonder you don't have a problem with Kagan.
that’s right, you’d rather that alan keyes be the next president
one who hasn’t spoken with his own homosexual daughter for what ? years?
It's common knowledge. You'd have to be a complete idiot to claim that she's not.
Typical response out of left field.
And a lie to boot. Also not unusual for a leftwinger.
and scalia and ginsberg socially get together for dinner
So?
Does this mean you want to nominate her for the Supreme Court?
Are you suggesting that someone who has never held public office in az run for the Presidency?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
“Looks like Arizona needs 2 new Senators.” Coming from a CA where they have two (2) Democratic U S Senators that’s saying something s/We need two new Senators here in CA, too, and we're getting one of them this November.
Worthless, spineless $h##brains. Voting for most of them is no different than voting for a democrat.
FUBO
we’ll see when the primary is over
kyl
Not only should they filibuster her, but they should uncover all that there is to know about the commie bimbo. She has NO business on the Supreme Court. NONE!
And the stupid party wonders why I quit donating to their worthlessness. Bunch of "get-along", panty-waist liberal-lite, brain dead morons. And that's their better qualities.
” ... but they should uncover all that there is to know about the commie bimbo ... “
“Commie bimbo” tells me everything I’d want to know about you
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